OK, as is usual for me, this is definitely tongue-in-cheek. Is moral indignation actually something I aspire to? No, not when I look around me and see the powers-that-be manipulating their positions with moralistic droning and hypocrisy of words versus actions. So perhaps I can turn this one into something less reactionary and embrace the positives of having an incessant moral compass guiding my life.
Along with my self-deprecating stab in the title, I also want to say that a moral compass is absolutely necessary, but never beyond reproach. It should always be growing, softening, hardening, reforming, and recalibrating. Nowadays, I want my compass to always point toward love: love toward myself, toward others, toward nature, toward the Divine. If I’m not treating myself with love, how can I bring love authentically into my relationships with others? If I’m exploiting myself, why would I stop to think about the ways I’m exploiting the earth? And if I don’t see God’s reflection in myself, how can I see God appearing to me in every little part of my day and life?
I am so saddened by the genocide happening in Gaza and Sudan. I groan at the thought of Ukraine’s years of war with Russia. This weekend we marked 5 years since George Floyd was murdered. My ‘representatives’ in Washington are voting in favor of killing many thousands, if not millions, by denying them healthcare and SNAP. All to concentrate more wealth in the hands of those with the most. So, yeah, I’m morally outraged. And sometimes that rage comes out productively and sometimes it doesn’t, but God forbid I refuse to listen to it. Because then it gets pent up and builds, turning in on my Self. Ask me how I know. When your compass is greater love, there’s a lot to despair over, to rage over. But as I saw in Rohr’s book The Tears of Things, this despair turns to deeper love and longing. So I think I’ll end this post at the beginning, by quoting the Biblical book of Amos, Chapter 5:18-24
18 Woe to you who long
for the day of the Lord!
Why do you long for the day of the Lord?
That day will be darkness, not light.
19 It will be as though a man fled from a lion
only to meet a bear,
as though he entered his house
and rested his hand on the wall
only to have a snake bite him.
20 Will not the day of the Lord be darkness, not light—
pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness?21 “I hate, I despise your religious festivals;
your assemblies are a stench to me.
22 Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
I will have no regard for them.
23 Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
24 But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!
Actually an Artist 
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